Little Hades Fiction

[once_janus]

{Little Hades Fiction}
Finding Paris



The hats had cinched it. Really, it was hardly the hat's fault, they only being mildly bothersome and quirky, each on thier own. No, it was more the boiling over of a pot too long simmered. Elizabeth had found not a single lead to follow. The room she shared, even prior to The Invasion of The Hats, was not a very pleasant place to lay one's head. Community Service had been the antithesis of joy. A frustrating string of days ended by the discovery of Hatopia inside the very small room she was required to share.

Elizabeth decided to go for a walk. She didn't have the energy to be as angry as she wanted to be, all her reserves spent fueling this nasty frustration. She was getting nowhere. Doing nothing. She couldn't find him. But that didn't mean she wouldn't.

Hell's muggy soupy air did little to clear the young woman's head. Her temper managed a grumpy bubble as her heels clacked harshly against the uneven stone and hard dirt of the ground. Even the slightest bit of relaxation was refusing to happen, and Elizabeth felt edgy and raw. She considered taking a breather to sate her jagged mood with a cigarette... but the heat was truly obnoxious. At least it was usually more muggy than painfully hot, when one was inside.

Her keen ocean-blue eyes scanned the space beyond the heatwaves. This was just one runned down crumbling street, decrepit and graffiti-stained like any other she had passed... but the gleam of light on windows snagged her focus. It took a moment for her eyed to adjust to the light before she could read the sign...

'Little Paris'

She was stunned only half a moment before the bitter bemusement flowed it... but perhaps it wasn't quite without a hint of sugar. It seemed like a mocking joke, but one she was almost tempted to crack a smile at...

As she strolled closer, details of the establishment began to come into focus beyond the distortion of the heat waves. The sign atop was broken, the rich red light flickery unreliably through the curvy cursive letters:

Little Parasites.

Little Paris.

Okay, so maybe this place did have a sense of humor. Elizabeth found her curiosity a little to ensnared to just walk away... Above the sign spanned a large glass wall, though it was so smudged with dust dirt and crud that it was impossible to see the inside.

Below, the entire front of the store was huge glass windows; the glass was dirty and badly cracked, appearing fogged in some places, clean in others, and oh look that's probably a blood stain. Oh well. Inside, Elizabeth could make out a large black counter, a few sizable glass display cases may have been filled with some kind of edibles, and what was possibly... a stage? As she drew closer, she could read a cracked chalkboard sign that declared the apparent appealing qualities of the place.

* Completely LEGAL sweets and snackies! *
* Browse from our SOFT R rated selection of classy lit *
* Lunch and Dinner specials! *
* Homemade, freshly ground coffee! *[(read, dirt)]
* Live Entertainment! *
* Open Mic Nights! *

Well, she had been hoping for some kind of Help Wanted sign, because employment equaled money which could mean a home beyond The Hive. Little Eden was not being cleaned fast enough. Riding on something close to heat exhaustion Elizabeth decided to step inside; curious, but also ready for a seat. Her large, raven-black feathered wings sure did soak up a lot of heat... So he found herself a seat inside a cramped booth and spent a few moments soaking in her surroundings. It felt like some haphazard stab at a cafe, and it almost pulled it off, too. The huge glass cases displayed pristine trays of delicious looking baked goods, which Elizabeth found herself immediately distrusting. The walls were empty and stained, the wallpaper peeling up and crisping at the edges. Various coffee creation machinery lined the space behind the service counter. And, a she had guessed, there was a small black stage tucked neat and sharp into the back corner of the shop.

"You here for the job?"

Elizabeth's startled gaze shot sharp to the source of the sudden voice. She was a tiny, severely eerie devil woman. Her middle was very round and plump, her limbs thin and knobby. Her eyes were both stitched shut with thick black cord. Her mouth appeared to have had the same stitching at one point, but it is all ripped and ragged.

"I... beg your pardon?" Elizabeth rose a dark brow. Where had she come from? She couldn't be more than four feet tall!

"The job, you twit! The Help Wanted sign in the window?"

There was no such friggin' sign, but sure.

"Yes," she replied smoothly, "I'm sorry, I was just admiring the delicious looking display of--"

"Don't give me no silver tongue girl. Sit it. Shut it. Listen here." Oh, okay then. "Our live entertainer, Mr. Jeff, he got Lost. The big L, you know. So I gotta get something else in here to drown out the silence, and the sound of folks puking and such. You gotta be better than ol' Jeff, so here's the standard: you sing, maybe play an instrument, and no one's ears bleed not one little bit? Then you got the job."

"I... think that's a standard I could adhere to," she answered, on guard and uncertain, too wary to yet be hopeful.

"Okay," the tiny devil woman replied, steepling her fingers over her bulging belly. "You got it."

"What, really? Just like that?"

"Sure, why not. You get 40 dracos a performance, plus tips. Sound good, feather-face?"

Elizabeth lost a beat -how did she know?--

"Yes," she replied, with a quiet note of sincerity, "thank you."

"Yeah fine," it appeared as though the ancient looking demon was about ready to walk away, but she paused and turned to Elizabeth with a sort of hungry smile.

"Your Little Eden, no home for you now huh? I got a space upstairs-- a real nice loft type place! All yours, if you're willing to be flexible."

"Define flexible," Elizabeth replied with subtle edge.

"You get tips, you sing four times a week, and you live upstairs free of charge."

It didn't take the young woman much time to weigh her options; she figured if it was the space she glanced at the top of the building, it had to be better than a grungy room full of bugs with hats, shared bathrooms, and so on.

"I've made worse deals," she muttered in agreement, one corner of her mouth quirked up in a humorless smirk.